Requiem: Lacrimosa

I watched Requiem for a Dream last night. I think I have some issues with it.

This is not just because I was totally squicked out by everything I saw. It's because I felt like the whole point of the movie was to squick me out. The dark and dangerous tale of Drug Addiction in Our Society isn't a new one, and it's been done a whole lot better (coughTrainspottingcough).

All the review-snippets on the DVD case are all "oo it's such a masterpiece, one of the most disturbing films I've ever seen, ooo it's so brutal and brilliant, ooo." I'm not sure what exactly is so brilliant about depicting drug addiction, something that is a Real Problem affecting a bunch of Real People, in such a two-dimensional, worst-case-scenario way. There's no subtlety, just giant, clumsy sweeps of This Is What Happens If You Take Drugs: imprisoned/in a mental institution/selling her body for drugs/got no right arm no more. There's no redemption. Nothing is unexpected; everything is designed to elicit a visceral response from an audience without engaging their brains. The good reviews I've read seem to confuse being clubbed senseless for powerful film-making. It feels like 101 minutes of anti-drug Public Service Announcement.

The way Society At Large seems to deal with Drug Problems really bothers me. It's a Big Brother-state kind of deal, a We-Know-Best mentality that doesn't allow all the information to reach people who might be at risk of developing addiction, subsituting facts with scare tactics and bad ad campaigns.

Here's an idea: why not treat drug addicts like real people. Why not treat the young people you're Public Service Announcing to like real people. Why not give them the truth and the credit that they can make up their own minds, rather than trying to scare them shitless with completely unrealistic nonsense (the whole amputating part of the final montage of Requiem: bullshit. And young teens aren't stupid, they're going to call bullshit on that, and then you can say goodbye to credibility for the rest of your movie).

Anyway, it seems to me that Drug Addiction is not the real problem in the situation this movie depicts. I wish they had focused more on how useless and uncaring the authorities were, on the lack of support for addicts, on the dearth of options for young people who want to 'make it' in the big wide world - rather than perpetuating a hateful stereotype towards junkies. Dehumanising drug addicts doesn't make them not real.

P.S. Check this out for more (and funnier) commentary on drug campaigning, and see these guys for some sensible ideas about drug abuse.